New Forbes 2012 Rankings

College Search & Lists
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<p>Actually it sounds like you’ve never been in a lecture. ;)</p>

<p>Professors necessarily rehash much reading but in doing so, they also give structure to the material - as you say ‘build connections … and a deeper understanding of the material.’ But the ‘deeper understanding’ is still limited in a lecture.</p>

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<p>Of course, but you can’t achieve that in large classes. The only cases where class time really does contribute to what you say are small classes. And by ‘small,’ I mean <15. I would say that the very best classes that I’ve had are <5, and the next are <10. 15 is pushing it and 20 is definitely too much. By that point you aren’t really getting much of the deeper understanding, at least not much more than a lecture supplemented with TA-led discussions. The real ‘deeper understanding’ happens from interacting with students and the professor in a small setting, but that has very quickly diminishing returns as class size gets larger.</p>

<p>So that’s why I was specifically criticizing lectures. It’s widely known in modern pedagogy that lectures are largely useless from an educational standpoint, but of course they’re the most cost-effective. This isn’t an original claim or a wildly radical one either.</p>

<p>warblersrule,</p>

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<p>I think that’s the problem. You have only 4 cases and are assuming causation. It could have been any number of other factors - the kinds of students who take it at certain times (perhaps those who are in the major take it at a specific term), or the materials that the professor uses rather than his/her abilities in communication, or the strictness of requirements that the professor has (some require greater depth in quizzes or assignments), etc. </p>

<p>My apologies if you’ve considered these differences and can only logically conclude that it’s the difference in professors’ communication that led to the changes in student work. I tend to be wary when a sample size is small and the variables are many.</p>

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<p>Agreed. But let’s face it: for better or worse (most likely worse), most lectures don’t bring in very much extra material. If their lectures consisted mostly of that, students wouldn’t attend. Rather, as I emphasized, lectures serve to structure knowledge: the professor will explain concepts learned in reading, but also show the relative importance of concepts (for intellectual value, not for the next exam), relate concepts, and then also throw in some additional material. So in a way this is valuable in lectures, and additional material would add more value. Of course, it could be that my experience with lectures is just crappy, but I’m willing to bet that the lectures at Stanford are not terribly different from those at Berkeley, UCLA, Harvard, etc.</p>

82

<p>Sorry this is far removed from OP’s subject, but I thought I’d add an extension to the discussion on teacher effectiveness in the past few posts. I’ve been out of the university scene for 35+ years to know about the dynamics of an undergrad class today as compared to how it was then. I do attend seminars and talks at conferences, where over the past ten years, the laptop and the web have completely taken over. Whereas people in the past would seemingly at least be focused on the presentation, it’s not uncommon now for 2/3rds of the audience to be primarily working on their PC and experience the talk as a background activity. I wonder if we are that much better in multi-tasking or do we expect to absorb that much less in these sessions.</p>

83

<p>i feel like this list has bruised a lot of egos. no one should be offended at how terrible ranking lists are because they’re all terrible in their own way.</p>

84

<p>Can someone explain to me why Forbes lists UMass Boston having an annually cost of $0? I thought Forbes was supposed to be good with money…
[University</a> of Massachusetts, Boston - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/colleges/university-of-massachusetts-boston/]University”>University of Massachusetts, Boston)</p>

<p>I also don’t understand how Emerson can be 275 spots ahead of Northeastern in anything, nor why Holy Cross is only one spot behind Boston College.</p>

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<p>Wow, interesting ranking going on…</p>

86

<p>i find it hilarious how uc’s ranked so low this year. just shows how much california education sucks with all of the budget cuts.</p>

87

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<p>You’re right - a Stanford professor recently got a lot of press for his work on the effectiveness of multitasking and found that college students are poor multitaskers: they do every task more poorly than they would if they focused their attention. That includes having multiple web pages open at a time and switching between them - switching your focus decreases your ability to do anything effectively, even in people who believe their powers of multitasking are better than everyone else’s. Also I remember reading something about lectures specifically, which discussed how with laptops, students absorb far less information even if they think they’re paying attention.</p>

88

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<p>Which is my point phantasmajoric. An undergraduate education that includes more small classes and less lecture style classes equals a better learning environment. Therefore, the preference that Forbes gives to LACs may be accurate.</p>

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<p>This is a good list.</p>

90

<p>If I wanted to build an ROI-oriented ranking system that deliberately favors LACs, it wouldn’t be very hard to do, even without using the much-maligned payscale.com, Who’s Who, or ratemyprofessor sources. LACs tend to perform very well by other measures such as average class sizes, per capita PhD productivity, and average LSAT scores, in addition to some of the less controversial Forbes metrics (average debt at graduation and percentage of students graduating in 4 years).</p>

91

<p>Each time this ranking comes out, it makes me laugh. Steve Forbes, the publisher of Forbes magazine graduated from Princeton, as did his father/Forbes publisher before him, Malcolm Forbes.</p>

<p>If I recall correctly, in the first year of this ranking, Princeton came out as #1, and Forbes was called on its apparently biased outcome. The next two years, Williams was #1, (but Princeton was #2).</p>

<p>While both of those colleges are outstanding, I can’t help imagining Steve Forbes retaining some “experts” to concoct a ranking system specifically to put Princeton on top (or #2, so it doesn’t look suspicious), ahead of its natural peers (HYPS).</p>

92

<p>In criticizing Forbes, people pretend like the sole reason US News makes its list is not just to make money. And yet, there it is. Both are merely businesses that want to make lots and lots of money.</p>

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The US News founder went to Princeton (often trades #1 with Harvard), and the current owner went to Penn Wharton (consistently ranked #1 undergrad business) and Harvard (often #1) for law school (HLS is always at/near the top).</p>

<p>So do you extend your bias accusations to US News?</p>

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<p>Sure, why not?</p>

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<p>Cool. Just making sure we’re being fair here.</p>

<p>Since both current and past US News owners went to the #1/#2 schools in every field.</p>

<p>And both current and past Forbes owners went to the #1/#2 school on their list.</p>

<p>Hey, maybe the US News and Forbes owners met at Princeton.</p>

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<p>Forbes is a laughable ranking site.</p>

<p>US News however, is still the most reliable ranking site.</p>

96

<p>Colby, Scripps, and College of the Holy Cross are better than Columbia? VMI is better than Berkeley? There really is no accounting for taste.</p>

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Why? They’re just out to make money, and perpetuate the myth that one can reliably assign a little number ranking a complex institute of higher education on one overly-simplistic and inane scale.</p>

98

<p>How is the 47th or so ranked State University above Berkeley? I don’t know if the ranking editors are high while making these or something, but that’s beyond me. Forbes is probably one of the worst ranking stats ever.</p>

<p>USNews at least has some common sense. Prestige IS as a matter of fact a part of ranking, and rightly should be. However, still isn’t a major factor in the methodology in their ranks. I don’t care if they’re trying to make money. Every business is. However, giving out a reliable one while making money is much better then giving crap like what Forbes is doing.</p>

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<p>So since you’re used to the US News perspective, it becomes “common sense” and anything that disagrees with it is wrong?</p>

<p>Forbes is wrong. US News is equally wrong.</p>

100

<p>^ No. Not “anything that disagrees with it is wrong”. More like Forbes is wrong. I use much more ranking sites like Academic Ranking of World Universities, Times Higher Education, QS World, but Forbes is just a pure crock of ****.</p>

<p>But each to their own opinion I guess. Good luck on your believing in Forbes goal of 2012.</p>